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  Unofficially, I needed to see her. My body pulsed and ached from the distance that was between us, a physical distance that was eating me up in ways I’d never had to deal with before. I’d never been so attached to a woman before, which was sort of the point. So maybe my official business was only an excuse.

  Besides, I need to make sure Shawn isn’t there.

  The thought was a little odd for me. I wasn’t the type to be jealous, necessarily, though I could certainly be possessive. And it was that possessiveness over Madeline that had me grinding my teeth along the way to her apartment at the thought that he might be there with here right now.

  Still. She’d pretty willingly let me slide into her and make passionate love—no, wait, not love. I didn’t do love. Rather, she’d let me fuck her into oblivion. She didn’t seem like the kind of woman who would just allow any man between her legs, so I was confident that fiancé or no, this Shawn guy wasn’t what she really wanted.

  And if I had to remind her of that little fact, well, that was business, too, wasn’t it?

  I arrived at the apartment in a relatively short amount of time. Once again, I thought of how easy it was to get into the building. There was little concern as far as who would be coming and going. This time, it made me frown. Madeline was living here in this little shit hole of an apartment in an unsavory part of town. Sure, the artsy community gave me a little bit of comfort, as they generally weren’t the types to get involved in the heavy crime that was usually problematic in the lower income neighborhoods, but still. Drugs were likely running rampant in the area—artists were known for that—and god knew what else. At the very least the damn place could have some means of protecting its inhabitants from the wickedness of the outside world.

  Something would have to be done, I decided.

  I made my way quickly up the stairs to her floor, rounding the corner towards her door easily. When I got to the apartment, I took a moment to straighten myself out. The night had been a little rough on me, leaving me drawn and ragged I was sure. I didn’t want her to see me like that. Taking a steadying breath, I combed back my hair and projected the calm exterior I was famous for. I didn’t want to freak her out, but I did need to ask her about Logan. Now that he knew I was on his tail, there was a good chance he would seek out refuge somewhere. Somewhere he deemed safe, and given that his father was a good ways away and his mother was dead, I was willing to bet that his safe haven was Madeline. I couldn’t picture her turning him away—unfortunately—which meant he likely knew the exact same thing.

  After I’d collected myself, I raised my hand to knock—but still I hesitated. Madeline had been…willing the last time I was here, but that didn’t necessarily mean she’d been happy to see me. And with my abrupt departure, she was unlikely to be in a better mood in regards to me. While I felt confident in my ability to smooth over that little romantic hiccup, I wasn’t so sure about bringing up Logan. He seemed to be a sore subject, though I sensed she must know at least in part that he was a screw up. Likely she was just in denial.

  I’d need a plan in regards to my approach on the subject. I shot at your brother last night, intending to kill him, and the only reason I didn’t was because he rounded a corner in his truck before I could get a good shot in. Somehow, that didn’t seem like the wise approach, but I didn’t think straight up lying to her was a good move either. There was so much potential for that to come back and bite me in the ass.

  So, I’d need a compromise. Namely, asking if she’d seen Logan, warning her that he was in serious trouble, and insisting on her denying him access if he did approach her—I didn’t want her to get dragged into this mess any more than she already had been. By letting him in, giving him refuge, she was bringing herself into it whether I liked it or not. It would put me in a bad place.

  What if she went to the cops? What if she asked me to back off and I didn’t? Or worse, if I did?

  I didn’t want to cause undo strain between us, but I knew walking away wasn’t an option. If I did, there would be another hit man to come in and take my place. One with far less scruples than I had. I wasn’t sure yet why it mattered, but there was a connection to her that I couldn’t deny, and it would be made all the more difficult if she hated me for killing her brother.

  Finally, I knocked, bracing myself for how this was about to go.

  It only took a moment for Madeline to answer. She didn’t seem as surprised as I’d anticipated when it was me on the other side of the door, making me think she had some inkling I would be back all along. That somehow made me feel good—right up until I caught the expression on her face.

  Cold. Angry. Apprehensive.

  She was still pissed then from the other night. From bringing up Logan? Or from fucking her into oblivion twice, only to leave before she awoke? It was too early to tell.

  I stepped in and she didn’t stop me, but she didn’t close the door immediately behind me either. In fact, she seemed to debate the wisdom of it altogether, as though worried about cutting off her escape route or being alone in a room with me.

  I frowned. When had that started? Most people didn’t start to fear me until they’d realized what it was I did or who I worked for. And I didn’t think she’d had any access to that sort of information. Not yet.

  Although I had planned before even knocking to ask about Madeline’s brother, I found myself hesitant to do so. Something about her mood made me uneasy. I decided it was better to approach her about the other reason I was there: sex. I could be honest with myself; Logan was on the backburner. Yes, there was a possibility he might show up, but there was an equally good chance that he’d just hole up in some cheap, rat-infested motel until he felt like the whole thing had blown over. Because there was even a remote chance of that, right? What a moron he was turning out to be. When it came right down to it, I wasn’t really here because of Logan. If Madeline led me to him, great, but if she didn’t have the foggiest idea where her brother was, then I didn’t care a lick.

  I wanted her writhing beneath me yet again and that was the real reason I was here, whatever else I tried to convince myself of.

  Switching gears, I focused my heated gaze on her. Every time before, that gaze had turned her to jelly, sweeping through her like fire. I could see it in her eyes, in the way her body shivered when near me. Slowly, my eyes slipped down her small but perky and perfectly curved frame. I let my gaze linger on her full breasts, seeming to grow each time I caught a glimpse of them, eventually allowing my eyes to tear from them only to dip lower. They trailed down her thin stomach to the flare of her full hips and that warm, wet spot between her shapely thighs.

  By the time my gaze returned to her face, I expected her to be panting with need, her eyes glassy with desire. But I was wrong. Her face was stony, her eyes clear as the day outside, a cool blue that was uncharacteristic from every time I’d seen her before.

  I frowned. What was going on?

  Stepping closer to her, I moved slowly, carefully as though approaching a skittish animal. She didn’t move away from me, though I saw her tense. Her arms folded across her chest, which did nothing to dispel my growing desire for her. Her chest always looked so plump when she did that, as though it might spill over her arms at any moment, heaving and bouncing.

  My own thoughts caused my cock to twitch within my pants, beginning to grow hard as I thought of the things I would do to her today and maybe through the night, too.

  When I was only inches from her and she had to lift her chin to look up at me, I reached for her. My fingertips just barely grazed the bare skin of her arm when she jerked away from me.

  I lifted my eyebrows in surprise. What was the problem?

  She turned away from me, sidestepping so our bodies weren’t so close and the heat couldn’t build between us as it always did. I turned to keep myself facing her, though I didn’t try to close the distance again. Was she still pissed from the other night? She hadn’t been reluctant then.

  I gave her a moment to sp
eak, to explain, to say something that would give me an indication of what was going on. But she said nothing. So, I tried again. Sliding up behind her this time, my eyes lingering on the full curve of her ass, I pressed myself against her, letting my hands linger on her hips and my member, which was mostly hard now, press against her full cheeks. For a full three seconds, it was glorious and I was sure she would melt.

  But then she pulled away again, rounding on me even as she continued to put more space between us. Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t do that,” she half growled at me. I was impressed she could even make her voice go that low.

  I blinked at her in confusion. “Do what? Press my cock against your ass or let my hands fondle your body? Because you’ve let me do both before.”

  She flushed and again I thought I was winning her over. But she shook her head quickly and took another step back. “Yeah, well, that was then.”

  My eyebrows rose high onto my forehead. Could she be serious? What could have possibly changed in only a day? “What is with you? You’ve never seemed hesitant for my touch before. In fact, you’ve always seemed hungry for it. Desperate even.” My eyes flashed as I drug my eyes across her form again, willing her body to respond with passion and fire as it always did. “I can tell by the whimpering and moaning. The begging. You don’t beg when you don’t want it.”

  She sucked in a quick breath and I knew that regardless of what she was trying to say, she did want me. Still. It didn’t explain her behavior today.

  She took a moment to collect herself, then leveled me with a cold stare that threw me a little off balance. In a flat voice, she answered, “I know you’re trying to kill my brother. I know, so don’t even try to lie to me.”

  I didn’t say anything for a moment, just stood there considering her. She was right, of course. I was trying to kill her brother, though I was also fairly certain the piece of shit deserved it. The stealing maybe didn’t outright warrant a death sentence, but the rest of it did. I’d dealt with a thousand people just like Logan and I knew that a one-time gig like this wasn’t an option. He’d killed someone, and that changed a man. Whoever she thought her brother was, he wasn’t. It was unfortunate that she knew, as that would likely complicate our relationship—if what we had between us you could call a relationship. I felt a spark of anger at the realization that Logan had to have told her – it was the only way she could have known.

  Which meant he’d been here. My eyes surreptitiously scanned the studio apartment, but I already knew he wasn’t here. The curtains that cordoned off her bedroom were only half drawn and not moving, the bathroom door was unhinged, so there was nothing there either. There really wasn’t anywhere else for the asshole to hide. I returned my focus to Madeline.

  “And if that’s true?” I prompted, not committing to anything just yet. I wanted to know where I stood with things.

  After a moment, she told me, soft and terribly quiet, “It doesn’t matter what my brother’s done, Nikolai. There’s no reason for him to be murdered.”

  I couldn’t help it when the corner of my mouth kicked up in a small smile. “Murdered?” I repeated, sounding almost amused, though I knew that wasn’t the right approach just then. But I couldn’t help it. It was rather ridiculous. “I’m not trying to murder him.”

  She frowned and I saw a spark of hope in her eyes. I almost felt bad for putting it there, but she needed to understand what was really going on. “Really? But I thought—”

  I didn’t let her finish. “I’m trying to execute him.”

  Instantly, she paled. The hope died and I felt a twinge of guilt attack me. “How is that any different?” she demanded angrily, throwing her arms down beside her, her hands clenching into tight fists.

  “It’s different because murder suggests senselessness. That there is no purpose behind it save violence. But an execution has a reason. I have a reason.”

  She scoffed at me. “What? Money?”

  “No, that was your brother’s reason,” I said pointedly, even angrily. Yes, I killed people for a living. And, yes, it was about the money. And, yes, I didn’t give a rat’s ass about Logan or his buddy or whether or not they were homegrown farm boys. Mickey gave me a job, I accepted it. Period. But she was under some delusion that her brother was this poor young man, innocent and wrongly accused. That his head was on the chopping block for some mistake, something that wasn’t his fault. Like we were the villains. And maybe we were, but even villains like us had a code, and I didn’t go around murdering people for shits and giggles.

  Madeline stared at me with wide, confused eyes. There was a flicker in them that I thought might be understanding, but she shoved it away determinedly. She didn’t want to know that her brother was responsible. Well, it was too late for that.

  “That’s right. Money. Your brother pissed off the wrong people by stealing a lot of money that he had no right to.” She opened her mouth to interject something, but I wasn’t finished. “And maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe you could even say that someone had a right to walk away from that, couldn’t you? No, it’s not the moral thing to do, it doesn’t make him the good guy, does it? But it’s not like he killed someone, right?”

  I looked at Madeline pointedly, watched as realization tried to flicker in her expression even as she fought to shove it back down. She was fighting hard to hold on to this idea of what her brother was supposed to be while painting me as the bad guy, but it was getting harder I could tell. She sensed that something was wrong, maybe always had.

  “Except that he did kill someone, Madeline,” I continued, eyes flashing in anger. “Not in self-defense. Not to save someone else. In cold blooded murder. That’s what your brother is now, Madeline. A murderer.”

  Chapter 17

  Madeline

  How was I supposed to stand there and listen to this?

  Every part of my being was telling me he was wrong. Nikolai couldn’t be right about Logan. But even as I thought that, I couldn’t one hundred percent deny his claim. Logan and I had been close as kids, but as we grew older he became…unruly. And not just in the way that children often were, testing their limits and boundaries. He had grown almost cruel. It was in reaction to our mother’s death and I had always felt that he took it so hard because they’d been very close. But even so, I never believed it was a permanent thing.

  After a while, he’d gotten better. He didn’t torture people like he did in high school, teasing and taunting at every opportunity. Moving to the city had been really good for him, and though he was constantly screwing up perfectly good opportunities, he at least was trying and making his way in the world.

  That was all any of us were trying to do, right?

  But as Nikolai stood there and told me about everything my brother had supposedly done, I held my breath, trying to pretend it wasn’t easy to imagine him doing those things.

  “He was hired to do a job, a construction job for a very powerful organization,” Nikolai continued, oblivious to the way I was struggling to take all of this in. Or maybe he knew and just didn’t care. I was pretty sure that this “very powerful organization” meant some sort of mafia, so there was every chance that he really didn’t give a shit.

  Oh god, I had sex with someone connected to the mafia! Worse than that, though, I’d given my virginity to Nikolai, gotten pregnant by him, and not only was he connected to the mafia, but he was a contract killer for them!

  The father of my baby—I couldn’t finish the thought. My only relief was that I hadn’t mentioned the baby to him. I had decided that I would, though I had been terrified to do so. In fact, before Logan showed up in my apartment, I’d been hoping to see Nikolai again so I could tell him. Now, I was incredibly grateful that I hadn’t shared that information with him yet.

  What would I do then if he wanted to be a part of the baby’s life? He was a hit man, for Christ’s sake! I couldn’t let him have anything to do with the baby or me. No matter how much my body continued to call out for his strong arms or his mus
cled chest or other things. It didn’t matter if I wanted the length of his manhood buried in me or not, Nikolai just simply couldn’t be a part of my life now.

  “It all would have been fine, except Logan found out they were housing money there. He decided it would be a better way to make money to steal it than to earn it. But he didn’t stop there. When he discovered that there was a guard watching the money, he beat that guard to death. The man was barely recognizable when they found him. Quite the mess.”

  I paled. I wished Nikolai would stop speaking, that he would just leave. Walk out that door and back out of my life—how had I let myself get into this mess? I was having difficulty breathing, imagining the brutality that my brother had done to that other man. I even felt a little dizzy, though I tried to stay strong while Nikolai was here. I didn’t need him seeing any weakness from me. What would he do if he did?